


At Sea

by Elster



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Asexuality, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-31
Updated: 2011-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-23 07:27:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/247709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elster/pseuds/Elster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Desperate and awkward sharing body heat or die of hypothermia trope. Without sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Sea

**Author's Note:**

> written for this prompt: http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/10852.html?thread=53575012#t53575012

There are moments when John hates Sherlock. The man is a menace to himself and everyone around him. Idiot. Bloody stupid fucking idiot! John already knew that Sherlock is mad enough to follow a car by foot, but jumping into the North Sea to get on a departing ship reaches new levels of insanity. It's March, it's dark and the water is bloody freezing.

John wants to laugh everyone in the face who ever accused him of having a poorly developed instinct of self-preservation. Look at Sherlock bloody Holmes, and say that again!

John didn't follow Sherlock directly, someone has to have the better plan. He picked up Sherlock's coat from the pier and searched for a boat he could borrow. Borrowing a boat from a tiny Norfolk harbour in the middle of the night is nearly impossible, so he stole one. And now he is at sea in a nut-sized motor boat, looking for the ship of the smugglers or the floating body of his best friend and isn't that a fun way to spent an evening? In the pale moonlight each spot of sea foam looks like Sherlock's light grey shirt.

And then he sees the smugglers' fishing boat, it's absolutely dark and drifting freely on the water. He turns off the motor and steers alongside it. He can't make out any sounds coming from above. The chances that Sherlock is on board are slim, but he'd rather search the ship than the sea, so he climbs up as silently as possible.

The boat is not large and he can see with one glance that the deck is deserted. The rooms under deck are as empty as the bridge and with a growing sense of desperation John decides that this is the stupidest thing Sherlock has ever done. Stupider even than the thing with the stick and the snake and that was abominably stupid. He runs back on deck, then stops. What now? Back to his boat? Back to land and inform the police that Sherlock has been abducted? Has he been abducted? Should John rather continue searching for him in the dark sea with a tiny motor boat and no idea what he is doing?

The moonlight becomes a little bit brighter as it shines through a hole in the clouds and John notices a speck of blood right before his feet on the white painted metal floor. More blood a few steps away and then John's eyes fall on the hatch and he hurries over. It's bolted shut from the outside, John opens it hastily and climbs in. It's colder down here than above, freezing and dark and the smell of fish is so strong that it makes John gag for a moment. “Sherlock?” he shouts.

There's a faint murmur from the pitch black part of the room. That part includes everything except for the square meter or so that is directly under the hatch and merely bloody dark. There's a shuffling sound and John takes a few steps towards it. “Sherlock, is that you? I can't see a thing.”

“John.” Sherlock's voice hitches on the one syllable and John takes a few cautious steps in that direction.

Despite somewhat expecting it, it startles him when he feels Sherlock's hand brush against his. He reaches out and takes it, notes that it is altogether too cold. He sinks down next to Sherlock. Maybe his eyes adjusted to the darkness, maybe the information he gets trough touch and hearing make him imagine shades in the dark, but he understands that Sherlock is sitting, legs drawn to his chest.

He is wet, alarmingly cold and shivering violently. With his right hand John presses Sherlock's hand to his chest to warm it – pointless, inefficient, but he can't help it – with the left he reaches out to take Sherlock's pulse. Instead of the neck, he finds wet tangled hair, an ear, feels his way down until he finds the carotid. Is the heart rate too low or is John breathing too fast? He gives it up and touches Sherlock's chest. It doesn't feel much warmer then the rest of him.

He feels Sherlock shift, sagging against him, almost throwing him off his balance. “Knew you'd come,” he murmurs.

John didn't and sometimes he just wants to shake Sherlock until he gets a clue, but that's not important now. “Can you stand up?”

“Ah,” Sherlock makes and John can't tell if it's some kind of contemplative sound or supposed to be an answer.

“We'll try,” he says and pulls him up as he gets to his feet again. Under his arms Sherlock feels slightly warmer, which John takes as a good sign. Sherlock leans heavily on him and stumbles a few times as John steers him towards the hatch.

“John, I'm cold,” he whimpers.

“I know,” John says soothingly, one arm still around Sherlock's shoulders. “We'll deal with that. You know what's going on, right? We have to get out. Climb up? It's warmer outside.”

“I want to go home.”

“Up that hatch,” John says.

Sherlock goes, but his movements are uncoordinated and he doesn't seem to have any strength in his hands, so John ends up wrestling his lanky body up. Outside, Sherlock is shivering even harder and nearly fainting from exhaustion.

“Stay with me, Sherlock, don't sleep. Talk to me.”

“They locked me up.”

“Yeah, did they hurt you?” John drags Sherlock towards the door that leads under deck.

“So dark.”

John hugs him closer. It's a miracle they don't fall on the narrow stairs. John leads Sherlock to the tiny bedroom he found earlier. The rooms are badly heated, but warmer than the outside at least. John makes Sherlock sit on the bed. On the small cupboard next to it stands some kind of electrical lantern. When he switches it on, the sudden brightness blinds him for a moment.

Sherlock makes a pained noise and screws his eyes shut. The left side of his face is bruised and there is dried blood under and around his nose, but it looks like it stopped bleeding pretty fast. The thing that really worries John is the hypothermia.

“How long have you been down there?” he asks without much hope of getting a good answer.

Sherlock stares blankly at him for a long moment, thinking, while John opens the buttons of his soaking shirt. “Four hours,” he says at last.

“That can't be right.” Sherlock jumped off the pier not two hours ago.

Sherlock looks insecure for a moment, then just looks away.

John sighs and peels his shirt off. Sherlock's chest is as unhealthily pale as his face. John takes the blanket from the bed and wraps it securely around his shoulders before he starts on the trousers.

“I'm not in shock,” Sherlock says and tries to shrug the blanket off.

“Stop that!” John holds him by the shoulders until he stops struggling. “You bloody well are.”

He takes Sherlock's trousers off together with the pants and socks, it's all still sopping wet and he just drops it on the floor. There's no sign of his shoes.

“Lie down.”

Sherlock just drops sideways and curls in on himself, still shivering. John takes the blanket from the second cot and tugs him in.

He stays crouched next to the bed for a long moment, his face close to Sherlock's. “I'll go and look for more blankets, alright?” he says when he stands up eventually.

“Don't go,” Sherlock says, almost panicked.

“Just for a moment. I'm back before you know it.”

He searches all the cupboards he can find, but there aren't more blankets. No hot water bottles either. John returns to Sherlock with a towel and wraps it around his wet hair. Then he sits besides him on the edge of the bed and starts rubbing his back through the blanket.

“Do you feel like you're getting any warmer?”

Sherlock just shakes his head. “I want tea.”

“Yeah,” John sighs, “that would be brilliant.” He reaches out to tilt Sherlock's head into the light, so he can have a closer look at the bruise, but Sherlock just leans into he touch.

“You're so warm,” he says.

They look at each other for a long moment. Sherlock lifts the blanket and holds it open, less an invitation than a demand, but it's closer to his normal behaviour than the apathy he displayed until now, so John feels slightly relieved.

“Alright,” he huffs. He takes off his coat and drapes it over Sherlock's shoulders, then lies down next to him and pulls the blankets over the two of them.

He hasn't even settled, when he feels Sherlock opening his fly. “What!” He grabs for his wrists hastily. “That's not- I mean we-”

“Come on, John, my feet are freezing,” Sherlock whines and wriggles closer to bury his face (damp cold breath, even colder nose) in the crook of John's neck. John shivers and lets Sherlock's hands go after a moment of hesitation.

It takes him a moment to notice that Sherlock started on the buttons of his cardigan and shirt, while he wriggles out of his trousers. A moment and a brush of ice-cold fingers against his nipple. “Sherlock, what-”

“Sorry,” Sherlock says without sounding particularly sorry and then he wraps his whole body around John like a giant, cold damp octopus. It's terrible, Sherlock's clammy skin all the way down his front and cold arms encircling his chest under his shirt, freezing fingers on his shoulder blades and icy feet against his calves. John shivers and gasps and has to actively fight the urge to throw Sherlock off.

“Okay,” he breathes after a long moment. “Alright.” He warps his own arms around Sherlock's waist and pulls him closer.

And then John kisses him, just below the ear. He doesn't really know why, it's all those long minutes on the dark sea coming back to him. It's that Sherlock is here in his arms, as stupid as ever and alive.

Sherlock shifts. “John,” he says, uncomfortable and hesitant. “This is not- _I_ am not, that is-”

„No, I know. Me neither. It's just- I thought you've really managed to kill yourself this time,” he whispers. Sherlock hugs him closer for a second, but doesn't answer. Then he kisses John's shoulder, just once, firm, a swift press of closed lips. As close to an apology as Sherlock will ever get.

They lie like this, entangled, shivering together and slowly warming under the heavy blankets. John smiles and lets the rocking of the boat lull him into sleep.


End file.
